An MP has suggested bringing back the death penalty to tackle violent crime.

Conservative John Hayes believes the punishment should be made available to courts dealing with the most serious crimes.

The MP for South Holland and The Deepings put a written question to Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke "to ask if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to reintroduce the death penalty to tackle violent crime".

The Government says it opposes the death penalty around the world.

But Mr Hayes believes his argument would be supported by people across the country.

He told Lincolnshire Live : "We have got an issue in Britain with very serious crime.

"We have had a number of serious crimes, the murder rates increases and barely a week goes by without hearing about some horrific child murder or old people being attacked and killed.

MP John Hayes
MP John Hayes

"Many of my constituents say that's partly because we don't respond appropriately.

"It seems to me there really needs to be a fitting punishment.

"I say capital punishment should be a sentence available to the courts but the death penalty should not be mandatory - that's always been my position.

"If you look at the Westminster Bridge attacker, he was shot in cold-blood after someone had taken a proper decision to stop him.

"If he had survived I think most of the British public would have been OK if he had received a fair trial and been hanged - most people would deem that appropriate.

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"Fred West and Harold Shipman killed themselves and it was almost as if they knew that was the right thing for them to do.

"I did not table a motion, I simply raised it as a question."

What the Government says

Edward Argar, Under Secretary for Justice, explained that the Government opposes the death penalty and calls for a worldwide ban.

He wrote: "The Government opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances and has no plans to reintroduce it.

"We are also actively advocating for the global abolition of the death penalty.

"This includes meeting with foreign delegations, who have the death penalty, to set out our alternative sentencing framework."

The history of capital punishment

Capital punishment ended in the UK in 1965

Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were the last people hanged in the UK. They were executed in 1964 for the murder of John West at his home in Seaton, Cumberland.

Capital punishment for murder was abolished in the UK in 1965 following the executions of people who were later proved to have been innocent.

Timothy Evans was famously wrongly convicted and hanged in 1950 for killing his wife and infant daughter at 10 Rillington Place in London.

Three years later John Christie was exposed as a serial killer and confessed to Mrs Evans' murder before he was executed.

People could also be hanged for committing the offence of high treason.

The last person executed for treason in the UK was William Joyce in 1946. He was a Nazi sympathiser who as 'Lord Haw-Haw' broadcast propaganda during the Second World War.

The maximum sentence for treason in the UK is now life imprisonment as set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

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